Overview

Marion

Edmunds

Documentary Filmmaker,

Producer, Journalist

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Overview

Marion

Edmunds

Documentary Filmmaker,

Producer, Journalist

I am a documentary filmmaker, producer and journalist, living in Cape Town. I am currently promoting my latest documentary Troopship Tragedy as well as working as a free-lance producer for CNN’s African Voices.

I am a seasoned documentary director, producer and journalist.

Background

I started my journalism career in radio in the early 1990s, reporting on South Africa's turbulent transition to democracy, filing daily on the peace talks in Kempton Park. From there I moved to Parliament, to cover South Africa’s first legitimate government, led by Nelson Mandela.

Since then I worked extensively as a political reporter, both in print and TV, covering the transition from apartheid to full democracy in South Africa. During that time, I was employed by the pioneering Mail and Guardian newspaper and etv News. I have fixed and written and produced as a free-lancer for local and international media.

When I moved to Sabido Productions in 2006, I developed my journalism and current affairs skills to embrace the art of cinematic documentary-making. Now as a free-lancer, I am working to combine producing, journalism and documentary-making into a single career.

I was educated in Cape Town and for two years in Cambridge in the UK. I completed my under-graduate degree at the University of Cape Town, majoring in English and French and then went on to Stellenbosch University to graduate with an Honours for Journalism. I completed an online UCT short screen-writing course in 2015, and a Creative Writing course the year before that. In between, I married, had two children and set up home in Cape Town. I am currently taking French lessons at the Alliance Francaise to reinvigorate my dormant French.

Prior to joining Sabido Productions, I also worked as a producer for two flagship current affairs programmes, one being the award-winning programme, Carte Blanche, which broadcasts through M-Net. Before that, I was one of the founder producers of Special Assignment, then the leading current affairs programme of SABC 3, in a team lead by veteran commentator Max du Preez and investigative journalist Jacques Pauw.

At Sabido Productions, I produced a slate of documentaries, a number of them about the personal stories of interesting political figures involved in South Africa's seismic political transition. Please see my filmography for more details.

Two of my most recent documentaries, The Vula Connection, and Troopship Tragedy, were nominated for SAFTA Awards in 2014 and 2015. The Vula Connection won two SAFTAS - Best Cinematographer and Best Editor. In 2015 I was selected as a judge for the upcoming South African Film and TV Awards (SAFTAs).

Documentaries

Documentaries

Documentaries

From 2006 to 2015 I worked for a Cape Town-based media company, Sabido Productions, where I directed and produced a number of long form documentaries, telling stories about South Africa’s turbulent history.

My filmography includes:Troopship Tragedy (2015) – This is the story of one man’s search for the bones of his ancestors, a hundred years after the sinking of the vessel, the SS Mendi, in the English Channel in an extraordinary wartime accident. More than 600 African volunteers lost their lives in a tragedy which still disturbs their communities today.

The Vula Connection (2014) – this true-life spy thriller picked up two awards at South Africa’s Film and Television Awards in 2015, for editing and cinematography. It is about a quiet revolutionary who defied the apartheid government in a spectacular way – once by breaking out of prison, and in the second instance, breaking back into the country to fuel a People’s Revolution, using technology to undermine might.

South Africa’s Last White President: Interviews with FW de Klerk (2012) – this two-part biopic charts the final choices made by former President FW de Klerk with exclusive interviews about the decision-making that led to South Africa’s democratic transition.